Reviews for Eleanor Rigby

The average rating for Eleanor Rigby based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-04-07 00:00:00 Michael Wright "What if God exists but he doesn't really like people very much?" It's 2am. I'm willing back an emotional outburst. It manifests itself in the usual way'lump in the throat, shaky hands. Damn. I hate this and then again…. Do you ever feel like the Tin Man? It's a horrible feeling. "I feel like that one Scrabble tile that has no letter on it." Exactly It's been a dozen years (at least) since I've read Coupland. I remember being inspired by Generation X and feeling like I was a piece of living history. This was our time---He was writing about me. Oh, to be young and so self-absorbed. You can't go home again, right? That's the saying? Yet here I am feeling that Coupland has nailed it. He gives me faith. Time is whimsical and cruel." Uh huh. Maybe I should talk about the book. Right. Stay on track. In front of me is a piece of notebook paper with page numbers and quotes scribbled all over it. I do this when I read something that elicits gooseflesh. 91, 92, 128, 130, 139, 117, 118, 179, 180, 57, 58, 229, 1. So, I'm not exactly sure how to review this book. I mean, I could do the standard book jacket rant, but that's not me. I'm one of those irritating reviewers that likes to talk about how the book makes me feel and how it relates to me (see: self absorbed). This book mentions 4 hidden layers of personality, the public self, the private self, the secret self and the dark self. "The fourth is the dark self - the one that drives the car, the one that has the map; the one that is greedy or trusting or filled with hate. It's so strong it defies speaking." Lately, I've been relating to that 4th self. That frightens me a little. This book is about loneliness and settling and then light and hope and visions and 'A new order, cold white lights that burn and die." It's about farmers and fate and family and mystics. It's seeing beauty in the ordinary and appreciating the surprises. It's about painting one wall red. I loved this book. I love Coupland for stringing together words, for giving me my faith and still letting me be a skeptic. 2nd sentence: "Just imagine looking at our world with brand new eyes, everything fresh, covered with dew and charged with beauty'pale skin and yellow daffodils, boiled lobsters and a full moon." It's a good day.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-05-02 00:00:00 Elias Marroquin Lonely people want to be dead, yet we're still not quite ready to go'we don't want to miss the action; we want to see who wins next year's Academy Awards. Doug Coupland's Eleanor Rigby is tailor-made for dedicated readers fond of literature-focused social networking sites and who maybe, you know, sometimes think they should have more face to face interaction with other human beings but friends, in flesh and blood, can just be so exhausting. Liz, narrator and nondescript cubicle dweller, looks dormant on the exterior but engages in the whirling, detailed thought processes of a lonely person who can watch her surroundings with impunity because most people have forgotten she's there. She returns to her tomblike condo at night and, well, thinks some more. Still, even the most careful lonely people cross fortune, and Liz's path includes German prisons, dead bodies near the railroad tracks, and space detritus falling at her feet. And therein lies Eleanor Rigby's nagging problem. Coupland overuses absolutely groan-inducing plot developments, not just tugging at one's heartstrings but grabbing on tightly and wrenching the goddamn hell out of said strings until you want to kick the author in the balls to make him let go. If he's not tugging he's swerving left to right with the dues ex machina like a sugar-addled kindergartner describing a trip to Mars. And why? I'm not entirely sure. The book doesn't need all that tugging and swerving. Liz's internal dialogues are excellent, and Coupland's portrayal of a lonely person's reflections and perceptions could carry the book on its own. The plot distracted me from the characters. The last thirty pages almost raised the rating to three stars, but…nah. I'd be lying. Had the book been longer I might have given up. I've heard The Gum Thief is great, so I'm going to check out that one. Coupland's got promise. Eleanor Rigby, however, shoots off like a Roman candle just wet enough to disappoint.